What’s The Bulletproof Musician?

Stage fright. Performance anxiety. Nervousness. Argh! There are lots of words to describe what we feel before and during a big performance or audition. And a few choice ones to express how we feel when we walk off stage having played like a shell of ourselves.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get up there with some confidence, nail your performance, and walk off feeling great?

The purpose of this website is to teach musicians how to overcome stage fright, performance anxiety, and other blocks to peak performance. The specific mental skills you develop will allow you to experience the satisfaction of performing up to your abilities – even when the lights are brightest. Wait, let me rephrase that. Especially when the lights are brightest.

If you came here looking for a quick fix or a magic pill, I’m afraid you will have to look elsewhere. Like anything else you do in the practice room, learning how to perform your best under pressure takes some work. Stage fright and performance anxiety are natural reactions to big auditions, concerts, and recitals, so performing consistently well requires reprogramming your response to stress.

What I am offering you is no superficial “band-aid”, but a collection of established principles, techniques, and psychological skills from the research literature on performance psychology and based on my own experiences and training in music and psychology.

The ultimate goal of The Bulletproof Musician? For you to figure out what it takes to rise above the nerves, distractions, and stress of a performance, to feel as though nothing can get to you, and when the moment of truth arrives, play the way you know you can.

To be, in a word, bulletproof.

Dive right into the blog, or get started with the ever-popular question of “How many hours a day should you practice?“